Hurricanes and Avian Flu

Well by now Wilma is done flatting Mexico and is on her way to Florida. I just looked at the satellite photos for the equatorial Atlantic off the West Coast of Africa and guess what I saw! Two more storms that are starting to rotate. Only time will tell if they are Alpha and Beta.

In the mean time most people are worrying about an Avian Influenza pandemic. The Avian flu (mostly the H5N1 flu strain) is deadly to birds and has been found in Turkey and East Asia. While only 50 people have died from the avian flus (there are many types) and it is not spread from person to person, it is a major concern. So major in fact that birds are being killed en masse to ensure that it doesn’t spread, and Bush has asked the vaccine companies to produce a vaccine. Here is the flaw in that little plan; the real threat of avian flu is that it will infect a host that is already infected with a human strain of influenza and recombine. This new type of flu might and I stress, might combine the ability to easily infect humans and be, at least from an immunological perspective be completely new, leaving us defenseless, and the vaccine useless. This is how we got the Swine flu.
It is not an accident that East Asia is where most new flu strains get their start. The three major types of flu hosts ducks, pigs and people live in close contact and share their viruses. Some pig in Shanghai, China might at this very moment be allowing the exchange of genetic information between strains of influenza that will be the next super virus.
Should we panic and close the airports? No! Should we be vigilant and if we get sick stay home? Yes! Influenza is one on of the best novice bioweapons, because people want to spread it. People go to work thinking I’ll be ok and start infecting people, or if they are ordered into work when they feel bad they think “Wait till they feel like this, that’ll teach them” and start intentionally infecting people. Parents send sick kids to school just so it will be someone else’s problem, and by lunch time when the disease has had a chance to reach full power dozens of people are infected and the kids are sent home.

There is good money in a saliva test for flu. If it cost like a buck a pop and people just held the stick in their mouth for a minute it would sell like bottled water and plywood before a hurricane.